Google’s CEO Is A Nerd Who Doesn’t Understand How Football Works

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With less than 45 days until the college football season gets underway, it’s time we start preparing for God’s season. Football is the thing that we fraternity men (and all men in general) look forward to during the long summer days when all we have is baseball season (which I love, don’t get me wrong). The tailgates, the rivalries, the incoming pledges, and the girls in sundresses and boots will take me from six to midnight faster than watching Chris Davis take back that missed field goal.

Not all men are looking forward to the upcoming football season, though. These are the guys who are too busy playing World Of Warcraft–AKA the nerds. The biggest nerd on the planet, Google CEO Larry Page, does not plan on watching football this fall because he thinks the sport is “too complicated.”

@amir correct! they had to explain how the NFL worked to him last fall.
— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) July 16, 2014

Maybe it’s my experience of playing football for seven years in Texas or maybe it’s my Y chromosome, but I don’t find the game complicated at all. It’s actually relatively easy to understand. In fact, you can teach a drunk sorority girl the basics--the downside is that you’ll hear them screaming for pass interference for the rest of the game. Four downs to get 10 yards, and once the ball breaks the plane of the goal line, you get six points.

I don’t expect them to understand what “i right 32 waggle” means or who’s responsible for the quarterback on a triple option (usually the defensive end on the side where the play happens) but they should know what a play-action fake is or that someone is supposed to hit the quarterback on an option.

If only there was a search engine that Larry could use to learn a little about the sport. Maybe someone should create that.

Hey, if he’s not out there bragging about his ignorance of the game because he thinks it makes him intellectually superior to not have time for such things, then I really don’t fault him. And last time I checked, he’s not out there doing that, he’s out there making billions upon billions of dollars.